Aho, Johnson, Laphew and Mayer grab Kinross Victories

Fans from both sides of the border were greeted with ideal weather this past Friday Night as the Kinross Speedway held it's first Friday Night show of the season.

UPCARS.com sponsored the night's events that included a full slate of racing action along with an Intermission Pit Crew Competition and go-cart racing from Millennium Motorsports.

The Super Late Model Division saw 2002 Modified Track Champ Dave Vansloten (33) set fast time coming in under the lights in 13.800 seconds.

Soo, Ontario's Rick Leonard won his first race of the season in the four car dash before Vansloten came back to take the 10-lap heat race.

The feature would see the father/son tandem of Tim (27) and Dennis Aho (75) make up your front row after Leonard would head pitside only to return and tag the rear of the field before the start of the race.

Tim would take just 2 turns before he inherited the lead on lap #1.

It was in the meantime that Vansloten had worked from the final starting position up to the 2nd spot by lap 4 and was coming on strong.

Unfortunately for Vansloten problems with his car would force him to head pitside on lap 5 and give the 2nd position back to Dennis Aho.

That's where the battle was as Dennis and Leonard were within feet of each other the entire duration of the race.

The chequered flag would fall with Tim taking his first feature win of the season along with the points lead in the division.

Dennis Aho and Leonard took top 3 honours.

The 2003 season has proven to be the most competitive year the Factory Stock division has seen in recent memory and night #3 would be no different.

Up until this point there hasn't been a double feature winner and following qualifying that statistic was looking good, as the field was very tight.

Cecil Piche (88) would lower the division track record by 1 hundredth of a second coming in at 15.670.

Jerry Ball (8) found victory lane in the four-car dash before Kevin Johnson (37) took the heat race win.

Current rookie-of-the-year candidate Paul Fox (36) won his first career race in the Australian Pursuit.

Josh Ware (7) and Fox brought the division to the green flag for 20-laps of caution free racing.

Ware would be your leader for the first 3 trips around the ¼ mile as the cars were trading positions constantly.

Johnson would overtake the lead on lap 4, as Ware would fall to 2nd and Ball sat 3rd.

Mechanical problems would see Piche head pitside on lap 9 only to be followed 1 lap later by Ball.

The field remained tight and unchanged over the next 10 laps as the 3 tenths of a second that separated these cars during qualifying was evident.

Ware would be looking for his best finish of the season as he sat 2nd when the white flag flew but a push out of turn 2 dropped that driver back to fourth.

Johnson would make it 3 different feature winners in as many nights as he took the win.

Praysner, Dave Devine (4), Ware and Fox made up your top 5.

The 2nd track record of the night would fall when Barry Glenn (55) topped Pure Stock qualifying with a time of 16.720.

Bill Cryderman (61) won his first race of the season in the four-car dash while Randy Miller would grab his first checker flag of his rookie season in the Australian Pursuit.

Miller and Bob Laphew (99) won their respective heat races.

Twenty-laps was on tap for their feature event and Miller and Ray Cottle (29) would set the pace at the front of the field.

The Soo, Michigan native, Miller, would lead the strong field for the first lap before Laphew would take his 4th starting position to the front of the pack.

By lap 3 Ben Huyck (28) had taken his starting position in the 2nd last row up to the 2nd position with Glenn right on his back bumper.

These two drivers would put on a show for the fans as they ran literally door-handle-to-door-handle for at least 7 laps before an altercation on lap 14. That would see Glenn tagging the rear of the field and Huyck being positioned back into 2nd.

Huyck would have a good restart and overtake the lead heading into turn 1 dropping Laphew back to 2nd.

While your top three cars had been mingling at the front of the field Ray Golladay (22) had a great view as he was now in the third spot.

The chequered flag would fall with Huyck in 1st, Laphew 2nd, Golladay 3rd, Glenn 4th and Cryderman capping off the top 5.

A post-race inspection would see Laphew awarded his first career feature win at Kinross.

The 4-Cylinder division has grown to 11 strong in the early part of the season and this class has the makes of providing yet another entertaining year.

Defending track champion John Mayer would break the track record in qualifying bringing his #9 car around the Speedway in 18.510 seconds.

Mayer would continue his winning-ways grabbing the four-car dash while for the 2nd consecutive week James Orr (24) was victorious in the Australian Pursuit.

The heat races would see two drivers win their first races of the season as Chris Brady (17) and Tim Gregory (25) would take their respective events.

All drivers were primed and ready to go for 20-laps of feature racing when James Thompson (8) and Orr would bring them to the green flag.

This race would be the 2nd feature of the night to go the distance without a single caution flag.

Hessel, Michigan youngster Jared Nightlinger (48) would lead lap #1 before Mayer wasted no time by taking over the lead from the back of the pack on lap 2.

Gregory had followed in his Pontiac Fiero and sat 2nd the entire distance in this one as Nightlinger would now sit in third.

No one in the field would be able to make up the distance to grab the lead and Mayer would take his third consecutive feature win of the 2003 season.

Gregory would cross the line 2nd but failed to go to tech and that allowed Nightlinger to be scored 2nd and Johnny Fountain Jr. (2) taking top 3 honours.

The Pit Crew Competition took place during intermission saw Factory Stock driver Kevin Johnson's crew taking the win with a time of just over 1 minute 30 seconds.